Oil-rich Heglig Belongs to South Sudan, Says Top Juba Official

North demanded transit fee of $36.00 US per barrel of crude oil transported from the South via pipelines to Port Sudan. This is outrageous.

[Global: Africa]

Top South Sudanese says, "We believe Heglig isinside South Sudan according to the 1956 British colonial map. Still, we decided to pull out to avoid escalation of the war."

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania--Barely 10 months into independence, South Sudan is in a bloody border conflict with Sudan in the north over oil sharingand demarcation issues. The Juba government says Sudan is reluctant todemarcate its border having lost two thirds of their shared oil as aresult of the independence.

Juba says it is fighting to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Each side is reportedly armingproxy militias to destabilize the other. Reporter Michael Abraha gothold of South Sudan’s Deputy Information Minister, Mr. Atem Yaak Atem in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where he led a South Sudanese delegation to an East African conference last week, from May 1 to 2, on “NationalSecurity and the Right to Information”. Here are excerpts from theinterview.

Atem Yaak Atem: Khartoum fighter planes have beenbombing our territories inside South Sudan non-stop for a month. This is unprovoked act against our people. We pushed back Sudanese infantry out of the oil producing border town of Heglig which is considered by someUN member states as a disputed territory.

We believe Heglig isinside South Sudan according to the 1956 British colonial map. Still, we decided to pull out to avoid escalation of the war. We want to settlethe Heglig matter through diplomacy. But Khartoum has refused to stopbombing us. We have complained to the international community but nobody listened although there was a lot of outcry when we went into aterritory which originally belonged to us. I think the internationalcommunity has not been fair especially the African Union. May be theythink that being a weaker party, we do not matter. But justice hasnothing to do with might.

BSN: Sudan is contesting the 1956colonial border because it places almost all of the known oil insideSouth Sudan. Can a compromise solution be reached? A: We in theSouth are fighting for our national sovereignty and integrity with orwithout oil, whether it is a desert or not. Our territorial claim is not about oil. Oil is only the motivating factor for the North to takeareas rich in oil in the South.

But we are talking of legalities.These areas belong to us regardless of whether they have oil or not.Khartoum wants the southern land because of the oil. You know, we havenot been greedy. When the independence of the South became a reality, we agreed to give Sudan 2.6 billion US dollars for the next four years sothat their economy does not collapse.

The Northrefused to acceptanything free from the South and instead wanted to engage in businesswith the South and it demanded transit fee of $36.00 US per barrel ofcrude oil transported from the South via pipelines to Port Sudan. Thisis outrageous. The standard international rate of transit fee is 60 UScents per barrel. This is the norm everywhere in the world. The maximumyou could reach is $1 a barrel. The Sudanese demand of $36.00 dollars abarrel amounts to extortion.

They are putting impossible conditions so that we would not reach a peaceful agreement. They hope by going towar they will be able to capture all of the oil producing areas and make them part of the North. The Sudanese government has also threatened itwould go for a regime change in Juba and bring people to power who would cooperate with it in reuniting the country.

BSN: But the UN and the African Union say both sides are committing acts of aggression. Is that unfair? A: I think those making such statement should check their facts again.Recently an American envoy in South Sudan admitted that they did notknow that the South had a claim over the oil-rich area of Heglig andthese are the people who can sway international public opinion. TheAfrican Union has also been misguided by such advisors as Alex Duval who has always been pro-Khartoum. Heglig has always been in the South andit was taken over by Khartoum and made part of it in 2004. The Khartoumgovernment made it part of Kordofan in Sudan.

BSN: Why was President Beshir’s planned visit to Juba last month canceled? A: We invited President Bashir to visit Juba for talks. But this did notmaterialize. The hard liners within his own party in Khartoum said theyhad a tipping that if he were to come to the South, the government inJuba would arrest him and hand him over to the International CriminalCourt in The Hague. This is completely irresponsible because in ourculture, you don’t invite a guest and mistreat them. There was nothinglike that. It was an excuse by the war mongers in the north who want tohamper the peace process. So while we were expecting the visit ofPresident Basher, the Defense Minister, Ibrahim Hussein, who is a knownwar-monger, launched an air attack inside South Sudan.

Then theystarted moving the infantry and crossed the border using the Southernmilitia forces as proxies. This was to create a situation which wouldnot permit President Basher to visit Juba.

BSN: Does the UN recognize the 1956 border? A: This is embodied in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA, of 2005 and theUnited Nations witnessed and accepted this agreement which recognizesthe 1956 as it existed when Britain ended its rule of South and NorthSudan in 1956. The 2005 accord was also witnessed by many world leadersincluding regional leaders in East Africa. Khartoum’s aggression isproof that it had no intention to honor the peace agreement.

BSN: In hindsight do you think it would have been better to delay declaration of independence until the border was demarcated. A: It is Sudan which is dragging its feet. If the border is demarcated it isclear that most of the oil areas will fall within South Sudan. There isoil north of the border but in small quantities. But as I said earlierour concern has nothing to do with oil. What we want is our territory.

BSN: Do you believe the people of Sudan were prepared for the split? A: When the South became independent, the ruling National Congress Party andtheir followers in the North were not happy with the outcome because the Khartoum government had not informed the population of the contents ofthe 2005 peace agreements and the consequences of those agreements. Sothe ordinary people were not prepared for the outcome of the referendumlast year. Some people in the north accused the ruling National Congress Party of allowing the country to split. So now the Sudanese rulers have to find the justification of how to reunite the country by using force. That is why Khartoum is bent on war.

It is clear that most of theoil fields are in the South and the Sudanese economy has lost a lot ofrevenue. This is why they are calling for general mobilization and unite the people against the South. Normally, in the presence of a commonenemy, people forget about petty differences. But the other factorthey don’t understand is that this is also uniting the South. The people in the south were naturally concerned about their daily life hoping tobenefit from peace dividends – asking why we were not opening newschools, producing our own food, etc. Now their question is how do wedefend ourselves from the aggression from the North?”

BSN: What should South Sudan do to ease the situation? A: We have been clear about our commitment to peaceful coexistence with thenorth. We have a lot of things that link us together like the RiverNile; that we can trade across the border; that the majority of thepeople in South speak Arabic and that many of us spent most of our lives in the North studying in schools and colleges or working. The people of the South and North have a lot in common. What caused the split werebad government policies in the north.

The people in the South andNorth have no real enmity. It is the ruling elite in the North who areinciting the people in there to hit those in the South. Despite theatrocities committed by the government in the North against the peoplein the South, people have always persisted saying “let’s move on”.

Butthe people in the North seem to think that this is cowardice. But thisis not true. The people of the South have been very forgiving all along. Whenever we called for our rights, they have been resorting to use offorce whether it was the assassination of our leaders or the massacre of innocent civilians like the massacre of civilians in Juba in 1965 andother places. But things must move on. You can’t keep dwelling in thepast. So when we say we want to have friendly relations with the north,we mean it. We want to be friends with all our neighbors. But thepolitical elite in Khartoum do not want this friendship. That is why weaccepted to negotiate with the north over border demarcation and thequestion of water, of oil. All this, we believe, can be resolved through negotiation. Nobody won a military victory over the other.

BSN: Conflicts often hamper democratic processes as this for instance seems to be thecase in Eritrea which is at war with neighboring Ethiopia. Do you fearthe conflict with Sudan will delay the constitutional process? A: Iwouldn’t say the war imposed on us by Khartoum would negatively affectthe democratic process. The concern is there. But our people aredemocratic by nature. South Sudan is a democratic society and it hasfully embarked on the path to democracy where freedom of expression ishonored and where the government and the leadership are held accountable to the people. Our participation in the just concluded conference inDar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on “Freedom of Information” was meant toreaffirm our commitment to the principles of the citizens’ right toinformation. We were invited by the Open Society Initiative for EastAfrica as a state rather than as individuals representing the media orcivil society from South Sudan. The invitation for which I came wasextended to the government of the Republic of South Sudan.

Ourconstitution embodies the right of our people to freedom of expressionand media. Many countries in Africa have not endorsed the right toinformation act already signed by about 90 countries. Now we are goingto join the other signatories and will become the 11th African countryto do so. Being only 10 months old, it will be a great achievement forus. We do not have national security laws which often hamper mediaperformance. Other countries are trying to repeal restrictive nationalsecurity laws which we do not have.